The word 夹克 (jiákè) is formed through a process of phonetic borrowing from the English word "jacket". The Chinese characters were chosen not for their meanings, but primarily for how closely their combined pronunciation approximates the sound of the foreign word. The character 夹 (jiā) captures the "ja-" sound, while 克 (kè) represents the "-cket" ending. This is a standard method in Chinese for creating terms for imported objects, resulting in a word that sounds like the original but is written with existing Chinese characters.